Marshall's sympathy with this point of view we have already noted. ¹ Nor was Madison's reference solely to the then recent activity of state Legislatures in behalf of the much embarrassed but politically dominant small farmer class. He had also in mind that other and more ancient practice of Legislatures of enacting so-called "special legislation," that is, legislation altering under the standing law the rights of designated parties, and not infrequently to their serious detriment. Usually such legislation took the form of an intervention by the Legislature in private controversies pending in, or already decided by, the ordinary courts, with the result that judgments were set aside, executions canceled, new hearings granted, new rules of evidence introduced, void wills validated, valid contracts voided, forfeitures pronounced--all by legislative mandate. Since that day the courts have developed an interpretation of the principle of the separation of powers and have enunciated a theory of "due process of law," which renders this sort of legislative abuse quite impossible; but in 1787, though the principle of the separation of powers had received verbal recognition in several of the state Constitutions, no one as yet knew precisely what the term "legislative power" signified, and at that time judicial review did not exist. ² Hence those who wished to see this nuisance of special legislation abated felt not unnaturally that the relief must come from some source external to the local governments, and they welcomed the movement for a new national Constitution as affording them their opportunity. ¹ See supra, p. 34 ff. ² On special legislation, see the writer's Doctrine of Judicial Review (Princeton, 1914), pp. 36-37, 69-71.